Page 2-Sunday, October 23, 1977-The Michigan Daily
RAMLINGS! stu mcconnell
The Michigan Daily-Sunday
ACROSS the desk from me sat a
supremely disinterested manag-
ing editor of the Milwaukee Journal.
It was late on a grey afternoon in that
grey city, and he wanted nothing
more than to crawl into his car and
putter home to watch the TV news in
West Allis.
But here' was this obviously con-
fused kid who wanted a summer
internship with his paper. Why, he
wanted to know, wasn't I a journal-
ism student?
"Well, sir," I said from beneath a
blue blazer and, an incredibly un-
comfortable tie loaned to me by my
younger, smarter brother, "I just
can't shake the feeling that the
journalism department at Michigan
isn't very good."
"Not very good," he scowled, more
to himself than to me. Great. Here
was this punk writer passing judg-
ment on professors thirty years his
senior in the business. Next, please.
Actually, I was a .journalism
student at Michigan once upon a time
during my freshperson year. I also
was once Felix the Cat in a Hallo-
ween play, and both have about the
same bearing on my ability to some
day land a job at the Milwaukee
Journal. ,
My first J-class (and everybody
else's, too - it's a prerequisite) was
J-201, Social Role of the Mass Media.
The name didn't mean anything to
me then and it really doesn't now
since all the department course
names are pretty much interchange-
able - Media and the Arts, Media
and Government, Media and the
World, Media and My Head, Media
and Reality, etc..
We learned all about how to read a
newspaper. The lines run left to
right, you see, . and they impart
concise information. We had multiple
choice tests. We met football players,
who were happy to have a four credit
course which did not require their.
regular attendance.
Well, I thought, what can you
expect from a mass lecture, 200-level
course? I enrolled in J-301, a "news
writing course".
Here I learned to write by comput-
er. Your average sentence length is
18 words. You forgot to include the
interesting and relevant information
about the burned condors. Please
retype and resubmit. Click, click.
Whir, whir. Instant journalist.
It took a few more courses, but I
eventually realized that I hadn't been
writing very many stories for the
news media. journalist [n.] - one
employed to write or edit subject
matter for the news media.
Philosophy 297 taught me that
either something is or it is not. Thank
God for Philosophy 297 - I might still
be enrolling in Media and Cosmic
Consciousness with a straight face.
That doesn't mean I don't take
these courses anymore. I simply take
them with other equally jaded Daily
staffers who rotate lectures and
Xerox notes.
THE realization that my definition
of "journalist" did not coincide with
the journalism department's led me
to that identity crisis faced by almost
every undergraduate, though never
carried to conclusion by many:
changing majors.
A number of interesting possibili-
ties suggested themselves. I thought
about zoology - there aren't too
many zoo journalists, you know. I
could sit around my desk at the
Major City Tribune and wait for an
editor to rush up to me with a story
about hypertension in pigs, because I
was the only one there who knew
about it.
"Get McConnell on this pig story!"
I fantasized him shouting. And then a
Pulitzer in Animal Husbandry writ-
ing. -
I could be a dentist. It would make
my mother happy to have the world's
first journalist-dentist as a son.
Pardon me, sir, would you mind
giving me your view on the Middle
East while I extract this molar?
We've just got your X-rays back and
they show you to be an incurable
Socialist. Lots of money in that
business too, with which I could later
endow the journalism department
with a McConnell Chair in Media and
the Tooth.
I even considered something less
down to earth - Religion, Philoso-
phy, English Literature, Dance. My
friends were real hot on this stuff. Be
an English major, they said; you'll
be great to talk to at cocktail parties.
"But what do I do for a living?" I.
asked.
"You could always write for a
newspaper," they suggested. My
friends are not above a bit of irony at
the expense of a panic-stricken
Nothing Major.
So now I'm at The Daily, majoring
in Media and the Media, and in
history, which I've always enjoyed
(my father teaches it). Early in
September a fledgling writer came to
my desk, wanting to~"now if he could
write for The Daily.
"Why aren't you a journalism
major?" I asked.
"Well, sir . . ." he began.
"Never mind," I said. "Can you
write?"
ROOKS
A different kind of Attacht
Marriag.e
By Eric Zorn
with
Siamese
sunday magazinue iMETHOTdCE PUZZLE
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1831
BY
STEPHEN J.
POZSGAI
Copyright 1977
INSTRUCTIONS
Guess the words defined at the
left and write them in over
their numbered dashes. Then,
transfer each letter to the cor-
responding numbered square
in the grid above. The letters
printed in the upper-right-hand
corners of the squares indi-
cate from what clue-word a
particular square's letter
comes from. The grid, when
filled in, should read as a
quotation from a published
work. The darkened squares
are the spaces between words.
Some words may carry over
to the next line. Meanwhile,
the first letter of eachguessed
word at the left, reading down,
forms an acrostic, giving the-
author's name and the title of
the work from which the quote
is extracted. As words and
phrases begin to form in the
grid, you can work back and
forth from clues to grid until
the puzzle is complete..
ATTACHMENTS
By Judith Rossner
Simon & Schuster; $9.95
C AN ONE TAKE a fairly ordinary
story of life, love and raising chil-
dren-the stuff of which soap operas
are made-spice it with sex involving
two freaks of nature, and come up
with an excellent, thought provoking
novel? Attachments, Judith Ross-
ner's latest since Looking For Mr.
Goodbar, suggests that one cannot. A
long and barely interesting exercise
in the sorting out of the psyche of
today's middle-aged woman, this
work probably wouldn't be noticed at
all except that the protagonist and
her best friend find it necessary to
marry a pair of Siamese twins.
Nadine Smith, obsessedasince age
15 with the twins Amos and Eddie,
takes us by the hand and leads us
ponderously through her life - from
troubled childhood to troubled adol-
escence to troubled college days to
troubled marriage, divorce, remar-
riage, childrearing, etc. The exper-
ience of wading through the 400 page
first person narrative becomes, at
times, as irritating as taking a long
car trip with someone you don't like
very well. You get sick of her twisted
whimpering neuroticism, tired of her
troubles popping up just like you
knew they would, and impatient at
the character who simply hasn't
generated your sympathy.
Bound and stricken by what Ross-
ner wishes to portray as an unspeak-
ably conformist background (her
father is a swimming pool salesman
in California), Nadine grows up
seeking to break with tradition and
find the new limits of her generation.
Is there any act which is impermis-
sible? If so, why? Confounding this
urge to define herself and her
morality is the search Nadine under-
takes to find a person she can attach
herself to; a person to shoulder and
share the burden of her burgeoning
neurotic anxieties.
A close friendship with the brilliant
young Dianne Shapiro (the woman
who will eventually marry the other
Siamese twin and complete the
menage a quatre) is comforting to
Nadine, but it doesn't provide solu-
-tions to any problems. Dianne has
Rossner
Now,
book has
up of ht
proceeds
ing that
involved
ward a s
opera tia
ly norm
differen
This we
friendsli
destroys
while twi
lose thei
ity, Dia
how ridi
stay ma
creature
At th
inevitabl
Dianne
vorce.
have to
she sets
she nee
attachm
new-fou
BUT]
at th
otic atte
her life,
doesn't
problen
narrato
the ge
Jackie 4
to stum
old TV I
- the i
the guy
don't be
become
she's be
neurotic
As the
and ba
Rossner
there ca
in awfu
struggle
cannot I
3c2N szoS
A. Ammiunition containing chemicals
that produce smoke or light
8. Deceive; trick
C. Neck; connecting passage
D. Model for the Ugly Amer can
E. Sacrifice; offering
F. French political advisor; author
of Vietnam: Sololoole dune
guerre (Full name)
36 84 106,117 130 152 165 115 176 179 192;'195
88 94 105 125 134 164 21 56
5 13 141 204 81 122 69
52 111 83 95 171 183 77 32
8 50 63 85 99 109 124 142 154 28
M. American war strategy
1965. 1968'
N. To be carried along again
0. Process of de-countrifying
P. Grisly event of March 16.1968
(3 words)
Q. Ancient proverb (2 words)
R. Presh water game fish (2 words)
26 73 104 157 166 181 188 37 65
3 185 72 197 57 202 163
2 30 45 82 71 136 34 145 151 158 201 123
4 53 59 79 97 148 156 170 186 194 103 139
her own troubles, and is ill-equipped
to be sufficiently supportive. Back
east at college, Nadine's first twc
lovers seem to promise security and
wise guidance, but they turn out as
screwed up as everyone else in this
book; fooling her, taking advantage
of her love, and leaving her somehow
more convinced than ever that if she
forms a solid attachment to another
person, her problems will be solved.
To escape the false, high-flown
fatuosity and empty promises of-
fered by men in the academic world
Nadine drops out of school and tries
to escape her past by courting an
marrying lowly Joe. Tumulty, a
blue-collar restaurant owner. When
the marriage is hell and nothing
works out, she returns home t4
California and survives on her re
kindled fixation on the Siamesf
twins, now looal celebrities. Hej
attraction to these freaks is the resul
of two overriding concerns - sh(
C
3
5
v
V
nC
n
wants to become party to the firmest,
most tangible human attachment she
knows of, and at the same time, to
destroy all notions of what's proper
and improper by doing the most out-
rageous thing she can. Her seduction,
though implausible in its concep-
tion, is swift and to the point., Soon
Nadine is romping in bed with Amos
and Eddie - a potentially bizarre.
scene described with almost no
imagination and devoid of eroticism.
51 149U 6 137 206 19 92
G. Present portah among nations - - -. - -7-9-
60 131 161 116 133 174 39 175
H. Observant; considerate - -
12 -47 22 89 14 68 113 178 128
1. Likelihood;chance
93 18 6110 20 207 27 58 49 87 107
J. Greatest; farthest-
46 150 90121 38203
.K. Psychological turning point of the - -- - -m - -
Vietnam War (2words) 16 100 40 55 127 155 162 182 190 66 101 172
L. Fluid diffusion through membrane - -
1 7 184 61 8076:96'
S. Steal a march upon
T. I hq image of Revolution
(4 words)
9 78 177 3119619Answer to Last Week's Puzzle
34 3 13 - 1-- 6 "In our unconscious
24 29 120 75 98 147 48 67 n , we C n nl jjg
75 98 48mind, we can only be killed;
15 205 159 193 ;,-189 it is inconceivable to die of
a natural cause or of old
86 102 146 23 168 43 47 112 126 132 140 135 age. Therefore death in it-
_self is associated with a bad
187 act, a frightful happening,
something that in itself calls
11 35 44 54 62 74 153 180 199 91 10 118
for retribution and punish-
70 191 143 144 173 138 m ent"
(Elisabeth) Kubler-Ross
25 33 114 160 169 42 167 108 129 119 OnDeathandDying
U. Commander of American forces
in Vietnam (1964-1968)
V. Frank acknowledgement
W. Priority:precederce (3words)
ARS MUSICA
Benefit Concert, Saturday, Oct. 29, 8:30 p.m.
St. Clare's Episcopal Church - Temple Beth Emeth
2309 Pokrd Rd.
$5 tickets available at: John Leidy, Complete Cuisine, Kitchen Port,
Jacobson's.
Worksby Vivaldi, Handel, Farina, Kotzwara
Champagne Reception to follow concert
, W HEN DIANNE, fresh from a dis- do fault
s .astrous marriage herself, joins serious
d the group, it seems as though Nadine uting
ought to be consummately happy. marrial
n Not only is she attached to her contem
g husband, but her husband is attached spoiling
o to the husband of her best friend. It someho
certainly makes for a cozy little sex witi
e group. When children arrive on the Conve
r scene, human attachments inundate touching
t their little country house, so much so what i
e in fact, that one wonders where they Siames(
put the furniture. that by
One little thing clouds the issue, lessly.
though: Neither Nadine or Dianne interest
seem to realize, when they decide to ignored
escape their lives and astound the ties for
world, that marriage is generally
synonymous with love. The women Attac
are hiding from a harsh world, and ed bet
the twins cheerfully admit that they incomp
married "for steady sex." Love is of stor
never a. question, and caught in the floating
middle are the three children and Rossnei
each woman's individual future.__ about w
Neither are given _ their proper hearts
*,,chance. ._ . ,fourson